John Lennon and The Beatles were what got us started playing music. Ever since watching them on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, rock-n-roll has been our life. Thank you, John, Paul, George & Ringo!

Billy Cowsill also grew up singing Beatle songs with his brothers, sister and mother. They called themselves, The Cowsills, and were the inspiration for the TV series, The Partridge Family. At 17, Billy and his family had a huge hit with “Hair” and later a minor hit with “Indian Lake.”

Billy did all of the vocals on this track in one 3 hour session. It was recorded at Bullfrog Studios in Vancouver, BC Canada in the early 1980s by Bart Gurr and Leon Portelance, remixed in California by Leon Portelance & Isha Erskine in 2012 and then mastered by Adam Nunn at Abbey Road Studios in London, England. Full credits are available at: http://vlride/bandcamp.com/. I did my best to emulate the Beatle’s sound and the production techniques of Sir George Martin as closely as possible. As this is a tribute, it is intentionally meant to sound like the Beatles including a couple of direct references to “All You Need is Love.”

I wrote this song on December 9, 1980, the day after John’s death. I personally will never forget the Monday night I heard of his murder in New York City by the deranged and insane Mark David Chapman. It was like someone had killed my youth and innocence. The world wasn’t the same anymore. A few days later, I went with our manager and publicist, Sorelle Saidman, to the Peace Arch in Blaine, Washington state for one of the many memorials. I stood with hundreds of people in silence, it was like we were all in shock. To quote Don McClean, it was “the day the music died.” It was eerie, you could almost feel John’s spirit moving thoughout the crowd. Then a guy with an acoustic guitar who happened to look just like John Lennon, started playing and we all sang, “Give Peace a Chance.”

Dedicated in loving memory of John Lennon and Billy Cowsill–may their music never die! Peace my brothers.

-Leon Portelance_______________________________________________TWENTY YEARS AGO TODAY (A Tribute to John Lennon)